Leaving Van Gogh (23 page)

When I had finished, we stood up. Theo seemed a little bit stronger, and he held the case firmly under his arm. The canvas could not have been very large. I wondered what price he hoped to get for it. I held the heavy waiting-room door for him and saw him steady himself on its brass handle as he passed through. I slipped the case from under his arm, and he did not protest as I tucked it under my own.

Then something occurred to me. “You must not tell Vincent.”

Theo shook his head, looking straight ahead into the crowd. “He knows.”

I stopped and dropped Theo’s arm. I stepped away from him slightly. “You told him?”

Theo seemed puzzled by my reaction. “Yes. I thought he should know.”

“But he is
ill.”
A young boy wearing a page’s uniform from one of the big hotels ran past us, not even looking back as he knocked into the case at my side.

“Yes. And so am I,” Theo said patiently.

“But you cannot … you should not have burdened him with this!” I went on, my voice shrill in my ears.

“Dr. Gachet, Vincent is my brother. I wanted him to know. This is important. We share things, Vincent and I.”

“But he is …” I looked up at the vault of the roof, so far away. A whistle pierced the air in the distance, and a train moved off down a track. “Don’t you see how this will affect him? He is so fragile! You know he cannot paint anymore?”

This was obviously news to Theo. He shook his head. Yet his face was hard.

I went on, pressing my point. “He cannot paint. He has been sitting in front of an easel for days on end, trying to will his fingers to pick up a paintbrush. Can you imagine how he feels?”

“Am I to have nothing of my own?” cried Theo, his voice rising above the din. “I am going to
die
. I am not yet thirty-five. I will leave a wife and son unprovided for. Against this you set the fact that my brother cannot paint?”

“Painting is life for him,” I said quietly. “He has nothing else,
nothing
. You know that.” I held out the case that contained the painting. “You may die or you may not. If Vincent cannot paint, he most certainly will. One way or another.”

Theo accepted the case, which quivered a little bit as he held it against his side. “I had hoped, when I told him, that Vincent might be sympathetic,” he said, looking down at the marble floor. A corner of a yellow ticket lay by his foot. He tried to guide his foot toward it. I could tell that he wanted to move it, simply slide it an inch on the polished gray stone. The foot twitched, and he gave up. He went on very quietly. I could barely hear him. “We had gone for a walk, that day he came to Paris. I don’t want Jo to know yet. She is so happy with the baby.” His face momentarily softened. “I cannot bring myself to spoil this happy time for her. There is nothing she can do, in any event. But Vincent should begin to think ahead and consider what he will do without me. I had to tell him as we walked along the street. Vincent has a kind heart. I know he does. He loved our mother very much.” He took a breath and looked up at me. Now there was bewilderment on his face. “But he was not concerned about me at all. He did not seem to understand what I was telling him. All he could see was that, if I died, he would not have my money anymore. He did not—It did not seem to occur to him that, if I died, he would not have a brother anymore.”

“What worries me,” I said flatly, “is that if Vincent has his way,
you
will not have a brother anymore. This morning I saw him roaming around the train tracks. I fear he may try to do away with himself.”

I saw him flinch. I felt a moment’s pity. No, it would be more precise to say that for a moment my pity shifted from Vincent to Theo. I had gone too far, perhaps. But Theo had been wrong to burden Vincent with this news.

Theo’s eyes met mine. I could no longer read his expression. It was as if a door had closed. “I must go send the telegram,” he said. “Don’t trouble to come with me.” He turned and walked unsteadily through the crowd, a thin, upright figure clutching a flat leather case.

F
ourteen

A
FTER MY ENCOUNTER WITH
T
HEO
, I felt it was urgent to get back to Auvers. I changed as many appointments as possible and found a colleague to substitute for me at my usual clinic. I was able to take a train back late on Thursday evening.

What could Vincent’s state of mind possibly be? As I sat on the train clacking through the dark to my village, I looked out the window into the darkness. My own wan reflection met me: loose skin, long face, eyes pouched by age and sorrow. Vincent discerned that sadness as no one else had done. He
recognized
me. He would lose a brother in Theo, but that did not mean he would be alone.

We had a sympathetic relationship, I thought. I could be a friend, and more than a friend. The 150 francs a month that Vincent lived on was not so very much. I could not afford it all myself, but I might find others who would help. Rich collectors, perhaps. And maybe Theo had not done everything possible to promote his brother’s work. There might be eager collectors whom Theo simply had not identified.

Vincent could stay in Auvers; he seemed to like it. He could paint at my house. I could find him more models so that he could make portraits—Paul, for instance, and Madame Chevalier. Perhaps I would resume painting myself. We might paint side by side in the country, as Pissarro and Cézanne had done back in the 1870s.

I had sent word to Madame Chevalier that I would return by a late train, and she had left supper for me, roasted chicken and part of an apricot tart, which Marguerite served. Paul joined us, sitting at the table and absently devouring the end of a baguette.

“Paul,” I began, trying to sound casual. “Have you seen Monsieur van Gogh this week? I am beginning to wonder how he is, since he has not visited us.”

“Only from a distance.”

“Yes? And how recently was that?”

“Yesterday,” he said. “Up on the hillside, you know? By the wheat fields, looking down over the river.”

Had Vincent gone back to the place where I had found him the previous weekend? “Yes, I think I know the spot,” I said and put down my fork.

“He was there every day this week,” Paul said, looking at me attentively.

“Every day?” I repeated, alarmed.

“Yes. I just happened to see him. Marguerite, is there any more of that tart?” He ate like three men in those days.

His sister rose silently and went into the kitchen, returning with a wedge of the tart on a plate that she set in front of him. I watched her, wondering what went on in her head. Was she still infatuated with Vincent? Did she spend her time in her room looking at his portrait of her?

“And Marguerite,” I said, “how are your roses blooming? Did yesterday’s heat fade them?”

“It was not very hot here,” she replied, slipping into her chair. Then she looked up. She was blushing now. “I saw Monsieur van Gogh, Papa. I thought you would want to know.”

“You saw him?” Paul asked, turning to her quickly. “You didn’t tell me.”

“He asked for Papa, not for you,” she answered in an elder-sister tone.

“He asked for me?” I interrupted, wanting to cut off any squabbling between them. “What day was this?”

“It was yesterday. Madame Chevalier had gone to the market in Pontoise, so I answered the bell. Monsieur van Gogh was there. He asked for you. I said you were in Paris. And I told him that we could send you a message if he wanted it. He seemed somewhat … distracted,” she finished.

“Distracted!” scoffed Paul. “What does that mean?”

“You know how Monsieur van Gogh always seems to look at things very carefully? And thoughtfully? He pays attention,” Marguerite explained, appealing to me. “He hardly knew who he was talking to. I don’t mean that he should know me especially,” she added, in some confusion. “But he seemed … He seemed agitated. And his eyes did not settle on anything. They shifted around.” She demonstrated, her eyes slewing right and left. It was disturbing to see my mild-mannered and sheltered daughter so accurately mimicking a behavior I had seen all too often in the mentally unsound. My concern for Vincent increased.

“And when you said I was in Paris …,” I prompted her.

“He said he didn’t want to bother you,” she told me. “I tried to convince him that you would be glad to hear from him, but he …” She frowned, remembering. “He didn’t seem to be listening anymore. He didn’t say good-bye, he just walked away.”

For Marguerite, this was a remarkable observation. Until Vincent’s advent, she had hardly seemed to notice anyone outside the family. Thus her grasp of Vincent’s mental state was uncanny. Moreover, she painted a wrenching picture. I hated to think that Vincent had come to me and that I had not been there to hold out a hand. I finished dinner quickly and, though it was late, left to go back to Ravoux’s. I could not rest without seeing Vincent.

So it was that half an hour later I was rapping on the door of his bedroom. The tiny hall was dark as pitch beyond the glow of my lantern, and I could see only a thin streak of light beneath the crooked door. “Vincent, it’s Dr. Gachet. May I come in?”

A moment passed with no reply. Then I heard a chair scrape, and he opened the door. “Yes, Doctor, of course,” he said, standing aside. I had interrupted him in writing a letter—the finished pages lay on the splintery table that also held the basin and pitcher for washing. There was only one chair, which he held out for me. “Would you like to sit down, Doctor? I can sit on the bed. Or we could go down to the shed, if you’d prefer.”

He sat facing me, hands loosely folded. He seemed composed, showing no interest in why I had taken the unusual step of bursting into his bedroom. Perhaps he was merely indifferent. The single candle on the table left most of the room in shadow; I could make out only the outlines of paintings on the walls and the dim, undefined shapes of his clothes hung on nails. Voices from the café floated up to us in a dull but cheerful clamor.

I took the chair and looked at him carefully for signs of disturbance. He appeared very tired. The lines in his face were etched deeply, and hollows shadowed his cheekbones. “Marguerite said that you had called at the house yesterday. I am sorry I was not there.”

He seemed composed. “Yes. Mademoiselle Marguerite was very kind.”

“Was there something you wanted?” I began. It was difficult to know how to say what I had in mind. Strangely, Vincent’s calm made it more awkward. My hopeful scheme for helping him seemed to have nothing to do with this polite, even wary individual. I pulled from my pocket a small brown bottle. “I have been concerned about you since Saturday. You appeared to be in a very unhappy state. This is a cordial I brew from valerian,” I told him. “It is mild, but it often helps my patients feel more serene. You may swallow a spoonful in water as needed.” I put it on his table.

“Well, Doctor,” he said with a fleeting smile. “You’ve been able to bottle serenity? That is no small achievement. Thank you.”

“No, of course not. It is just an attempt …” My voice tailed off.

“I know, Doctor,” he said. “Perhaps I frightened you that afternoon.”

His suggestion surprised me. It was unusual for Vincent to show any awareness of his effect on other people.

“I frightened myself, if you must know,” he explained. “Doctor, I know why you’ve come. You want to tell me that I will survive this. I’ll drink your valerian, and wake up tomorrow and go back to that hillside and the painting will come. And I’ll keep on painting, and eventually someone, somewhere will buy another picture. People will begin to understand what I am trying to do. They will grow to appreciate it. They will want me to paint them, perhaps.” He looked at me, brows raised, waiting for confirmation.

“Well, of course,” I said. “You have withstood these trials in the past.” My argument sounded paltry to me, but I raised my hand as if to forestall an objection. “I don’t doubt that there are difficulties you have not shared with me. That episode, with my Guillaumin—Perhaps you’ve had other signs that a spell is drawing near?” I met his gaze and saw an unexpected expression of pity in his eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “This is all true. I do desperately fear that another attack is due. I fear that I will do harm. It is a terrible thing not to trust yourself. And surely you can see, Doctor, that if I cannot paint, there is little for me to live for? Should I live for this?” He gestured to the dim garret. “I exist, Doctor, in the margins of other people’s lives. Even Theo and Jo sometimes see me as something to dread. At times the painting can make up for that, but can you conceive of what courage I must expend? I force myself to bear the hours when I cannot be painting. There are consolations, I do not deny it. Your friendship has been one of them. So has the birth of my little nephew. Otherwise, I endure.”

Silence fell between us. A shout from downstairs was followed by a gust of laughter and the clinking of glasses. That was the world Vincent would never belong to.

“So you see that if I cannot paint—” he began.

“That was today, this week,” I broke in. “You cannot know that you will have the same trouble tomorrow.”

“True,” he said, nodding. “Or the next day. Or the next. How many days would you say I should spend sitting in front of a blank canvas? How will I know that I have really finished?”

I could feel myself curling back into the wooden chair, trying to escape his remorseless logic.

“Or should I stop for a while? Do something else? What else would that be? When painting is the only thing I can stand?”

Again, I had no answer, but he did not seem to expect one. We sat silently in the flickering light. Downstairs they were singing a tune that rose to a near roar and dropped off with apparent comic effect to a mock whisper followed by gales of laughter.

“And besides, Theo has syphilis,” Vincent said across the merriment. I didn’t hear him clearly at first. He looked at me sharply. “Did you know?”

“I found out yesterday. I don’t believe he would have told me, but I saw him at the Gare du Nord. He had fallen … He is very ill.”

Vincent moved on the bed, turning to straighten the pillow. “His body is ill, and my mind.”

“Does Jo know?” I managed to ask. It wasn’t the most important question; it was simply the one I was able to utter.

“How can you tell a woman such a thing?” he scoffed. “He believed it was cured. It’s only since they married that he knew it had come back. That is why when the baby was ill he was so worried. He thought little Vincent might have it, too. I believe it happens like that sometimes?” He looked at me, inquiring.

“Sometimes,” I said.

“But you’ve seen the baby. At least he seems all right.”

“Oh, yes,” I said without thinking, “little Vincent Willem is healthy enough.” Then I gathered myself together. The difficulty was that I did not know what to say. My vision on the train, the idea that I should stand in for Theo, suddenly seemed ludicrous. How could I have thought it?

Vincent sat on the narrow bed, elbows on his knees and face in his hands. The noise downstairs seemed to have moved into the street. The room had no windows, but farewells floated in through the skylight. His candle was getting low. I had set my lantern on the floor but lifted it now onto his table, where it suddenly brightened the walls. Vincent looked up, tracking this new light source. He still had a smear of dark paint on his eyebrow from the episode in the wheat field.

“And if Theo dies, then where will I be?” he asked.

“Well,” I began. “I was thinking. It is not such a vast sum, you know, a hundred and fifty francs a month. More than I can afford by myself, but there are others, surely, who believe—”

“If these people exist, they believe in a man who paints,” Vincent cut in, with a mildness that had the effect of a sword. “I have not been able to put the tiniest speck of color onto a canvas for a week.” He spread his hands in a rhetorical gesture. “I can’t do anything besides paint. I cannot support myself, and I cannot even be sure that I will stay sane. I begin to be something of a problem, don’t I? And if I am a problem, even to myself—well.” He shook his head. The little burst of energy that had fueled this speech died away.

The words lingered, though. “If I am a problem, even to myself.” I found myself sitting in a fashion that mirrored Vincent’s, with head bowed and hands slack between my knees. A problem even to myself. Imagine it. You could never escape. The thing that you dreaded, that gave you that leaden feeling, joined to you like a shadow.

We sat slumped for some time, several minutes. I wanted to be able to sit up and reassure Vincent, but I dismissed each source of hope that occurred to me. I suppose, in retrospect, that I could have invented something spurious, perhaps a new cure for hysteria or a medication that would arrest Theo’s symptoms, or a buyer in Paris who had seen his work at Tanguy’s. None of these stratagems occurred to me at the time, and I doubt that they would have convinced Vincent. I am not a good liar.

“Did you know that Theo was ill before he told you?” Vincent asked, his voice breaking our silence.

“I guessed it,” I admitted.

“Will he die soon?”